Information on the Alliance for the Living Tisza
The Alliance for the Living Tisza Association (ALT) aims to improve the living conditions of those living on the watershed of the Tisza, to increase their flood security and environmental safety, to preserve and enrich the ecological values of the river and to provide an adequate quality of life for the people of this region.
The Alliance is open to private persons, non-governmental organizations, municipalities, researchers and farmers. We hope that cooperation will significantly consolidate the power of this organization. It provides resources to achieve the common aims and represents the interests of the stakeholders to decision makers at regional and national levels, but will also provide professional advice for those interested in floodplain farming, landscape management, or land-use change.
The Alliance has seven Action Groups along the rivers Tisza and Körös in Hungary in the following regions: Bereg, Bodrogköz, Kesznyéten and environs, Borsodi Mezőség, Nagykörű and environs, Nagy-Sárrét and Kis-Sárrét.
The work of ALT is assisted by the Project for the Living Tisza (Tisza Biodiversity Project) until the autumn of 2008. This three-year programme started in 2005, and is financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The aim of the Project is to promote floodplain farming to be the predominant form of farming on the watershed of the River Tisza – to preserve and enrich biological diversity.
The Alliance will endeavour to implement the recommended model of floodplain management with the support of experts and the participation of the stakeholders (farmers and the people of the pilot areas). The work will be summarized in a handbook containing a situation analysis, guidelines and best practices: to explain how conflicting interests can transform into co-existence and then into a fruitful cooperation between man and nature in practice.
To promote the guidelines and best practices Landscape Management Workshops were initiated in the pilot areas. Within the frameworks of these workshops participants will get to know the theory and practice of floodplain farming and landscape management and the related economic opportunities. We involve pilot farms in the regions connecting our work, where the experiences of nature-friendly land management can be introduced. We provide opportunity for the farmers to visit each other’s farms by the river and to learn from each other.
The Biodiversity Micro Grant Fund, financed by the Tisza Biodiversity Project and operated with the help of the Alliance, provides financial support for planning and implementing small-scale, but important investments, necessary for floodplain farming. The Micro Grant Fund provides grants up to a maximum of HUF 1 million (cca. 5000 USD) per holding. The budget of the Fund for 2006-2007 is 200,000 USD. The first call for tenders of the Fund has already been closed. 75 applications have been received from the 6 pilot areas, 50 of them were awarded grants.
Through its scientific, professional and lobbying activities the Alliance for the Living Tisza does its utmost to promote floodplain management in national and international policies. As well as other activities, it wishes to elaborate the Further Development of Vásáhelyi’s Plan (VTT) and the New Hungary Rural Development Plan paying special attention and providing support to these methods of farming. We work in cooperation with several national and international NGOs, professional institutions, research groups and projects.
ALT helps to get the products from floodplain management to consumers. The organisation is committed to taking on a role in market research and to maximise returns from new marketing possibilities.
Contact: Péter Kajner, member of the Presidium of SZÖVET
Péter Kajner, member of the Presidium of SZÖVET
Office of the Alliance for the Living Tisza:
H-5065 Nagykörű, 1 Május 1. út;
E-mail: titkar@elotisza.hu
Kapcsolódó dokumentumok
- Short Summary
- Comments of Hungarian Green NGOs on the draft rural development programme for Hungary for the period 2007/2013
- General information on the Alliance for the Living Tisza
- Brief on the Alliance for the Living Tisza
- Memorandum on the River Tisza
- The Price of the Flood
- No more bets
- Civil sector thoughts on the Further Development of the Vásárhelyi Plan Specifically with respect to changes in land use
- Land use on the Bereg Plain
- Borsod Mezőség Rural Development
- Principles of the Alliance for the Living Tisza
- Constitution of the Alliance for the Living Tisza Association
